Charles James Napier in Trafalgar Square

The second Napier in this series, and another 19th Century Imperialist, whose life and times and mores were completely different from ours today.

Charles Napier enlisted in the 33rd in 1794. He served in Spain and was wounded at Corunna and taken prisoner. He got back to the British lines and to England. He returned to the Peninsula under Wellesley (later to become Duke of Wellington) and fought the French at Bussaco, Fuentes de Onoro and in the Siege of Badajoz (where he commanded the 102nd).

The British Army was dominated by Peninsular veterans in the first half of the 19th Century and, at the (then) advanced age of 60, Napier was Major General commanding the East India Company's Bombay Presidency Army. He was sent to Scinde in 1842 to put down the local rulers who were opposed to the British. Exceeding his orders, he conquered the whole of Scinde, winning the battles of Miani and Hyderabad. He was supposed to have sent a cryptic Latin message "Peccavi" meaning "I have sinned (Scinde)".

He was Governor of the Bombay Presidency from 1843 to 1847, and Commander-in-Chief in India from 1849 to 1851.

The statue was erected in 1855. Napier is hardly known in the UK now, in contrast to Nelson near whose Column he stands. The First Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, memorably suggested that this - and the nearby statue of Henry Havelock - should be replaced with statues of people "ordinary Londoners would know".